


Feeling the heat

by eldritchalien



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Arson, Butch/Femme, Dream Sex, Dreamsharing, F/F, Lesbian Bar, The Web Fear Entity (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:33:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29437575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritchalien/pseuds/eldritchalien
Summary: Who is the attractive butch staring at Agnes from across the lesbian bar? Why does she keep seeing her in her dreams? It must mean something, and Agnes is excited to find out what...
Relationships: Agnes Montague/Gertrude Robinson
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8
Collections: TMA Valentine's Exchange 2021





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Scout (@soscout on tumblr)

1974  
This is not the most popular lesbian bar in London, but it is where Agnes prefers to spend her Saturday nights. It’s not that she doesn’t like The Gateways, but well, The Gateways doesn’t like her. Not anymore. 

Agnes stirs her drink, taking care not to touch the glass, lest she boil all the alcohol out. She needs every drop she can get. Around her, the regular crowd of lesbians and bisexuals do their regular mingling, laughing, dancing, drinking. It used to hurt, watching them without joining them in their revelry, but she hardly notices the ache now. Better to be alone than to repeat what happened with Frances at The Gateways. 

Near her, two women begin dancing. They giggle and hold each other close, as if they are in on some delightful secret. Maybe that’s what love feels like, Agnes thinks. Like there’s something only the two of you know. The thought burns hot at her core, and she can feel the seat of her barstool begin to singe. Time for a distraction. She casts her eyes about the room in order to think of anything else, anything that’s not her inescapably lonely destiny, when suddenly something new catches her eye.

Someone new. Standing just inside the entrance to the establishment, taking off her leather jacket and wiping her boots on the rug, is a butch. It takes all Agnes’ willpower not to stare. Until now, she thought butches didn’t exist anymore, pushed out of lesbian spaces by feminists who thought they were doing women a favor. She’d already resigned herself to the fact that even if her circumstances permitted falling in love, she would never find someone she really wanted. Someone who might want her back, not just despite her long hair and dresses (deemed silly by other lesbians), but because of it. But here in front of her is living proof that the world of butch-femme may not be as dead as she thought.

The seat of her barstool is probably blackened by now, but Agnes doesn’t care. She focuses her energy on maintaining composure. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches the butch approach the bar, and over the din hears her order a straight vodka. Of course. Agnes steals a quick glance at the butch’s face, and to her surprise, the butch looks back. 

The two lock eyes, and immediately the butch’s face changes. Her piercing green eyes widen in recognition and perhaps even horror. Agnes suddenly feels exposed, like someone just yanked back the shower curtain while she was bathing. She gets the sense that the butch knows her somehow, not in the way that the bartender knows her, but really knows her. Knows who she is, what she was born for, what she has been raised her whole life to become. Agnes blushes.

As quickly as the expression came over the butch, it disappears again, returning her face to an impassive look. Agnes looks away, hoping the handsome stranger forgets whatever she saw in Agnes’ face that shocked her so. Not that she wants her to forget Agnes entirely, but… doesn’t she, though? As drawn as she is to the butch, she wants to stay out of trouble even more. She can’t risk getting kicked out of the only place she can come to feel somewhat normal, and while Agnes didn’t understand the look that passed over the butch’s face, she knows it is probably not conducive to them having a normal, inconspicuous interaction. She takes a too-slow sip of the drink in front of her. 

When she looks up again, the butch has moved to sit at a table in the corner, but her gaze is still fixed on Agnes. Agnes blushes again. What is so interesting about her that invites that kind of staring? She glances away. A faint bubbling noise reaches her ears, and she looks down to find that she has been clutching her drink hard enough to start it boiling. So much for trying to play things cool.

Another glimpse of the stranger reveals that she has not stopped looking. Sure, Agnes wanted to stay out of trouble, but was there anyone in the world whose curiosity would not have gotten the better of them here? She begins gulping down her drink, resolving to go ask the butch what in the world was the matter. 

On her final sip, Agnes feels a tug at her sleeve. How had the butch moved so quickly without her seeing? Turning, however, she sees not the butch but Sandy, the member of the Lightless Flame who Agnes dislikes the least.

“What are you-” Agnes begins, but Sandy interrupts.

“Ugly place here innit,” remarks Sandy. “Surprised you haven’t burned it down yet.”

Agnes bristles, but doesn’t take the provocation. “Sandy, what are you doing-”

“You’re needed back at the apartment. Molina didn’t say why.”

After a quick glance around the room to make sure they aren’t attracting any attention - they aren't - Agnes turns back to Sandy. “Can’t it wait a few hours?”

Sandy rolls her eyes. “He said it had to be now. Come along, Agnes. It’s not like you’re getting any here anyway.”

Agnes sets her lips in a tight line, and wordlessly hands cash to the bartender. She turns to leave with Sandy, but before they step out the door, she takes another peek at the attractive butch. Agnes doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that the stranger is still watching her.


	2. Chapter 2

Gertrude holds a few strands of long auburn hair between her fingers, thinking. They certainly seem to belong to the young woman from the bar last week. The woman with the bright pink cheeks and flowing turquoise dress, who seemed almost… dare she say it… femme?  _ No, no, Gertrude, focus, _ she tells herself.  _ That’s not relevant right now.  _ What is relevant is that beneath her admittedly pretty appearance, that woman radiated immense, terrifying power. Maybe it wasn’t obvious to everyone else, but Gertrude has been dealing with fear entities for a few years now, and she knows an avatar when she sees one. No, not just any avatar. This has to be the “messiah” that the cult of the Lightless Flame has been grooming for years.

What exact purpose this messiah is supposed to serve, Gertrude hasn’t the foggiest. All she knows is that it won’t be anything good, and she must stop it from coming to pass.

She flips through her book once more just to be sure, even though she has memorized all of the relevant sections. Make a large circle of trees, check. Put a nail into each one, check. Attach string, some of the woman’s hair, and an empty milk bottle to each nail, check. Put forest trifles and recent photos of herself into each milk bottle, check. Place a stone altar in the center of the circle, check. Now all that remains is to place the last remaining lock of hair onto the altar and recite a chant. 

Gertrude closes her book, brushing spiderwebs off of the cover.  _ Can’t bring anything into the forest without bugs getting onto it,  _ she thinks and sighs. Setting it down, Gertrude gingerly places the last of the woman’s hair onto the stone altar. Doubts begin to bubble up in her mind, but Gertrude brushes them away just as she had done with the spiderwebs. There is no room for doubt in this business.

“O all-seeing Eye, as you watch the Flame devour,

From the Messiah who is nigh, take away her power.”

As she chants, the air around Gertrude grows hotter and hotter until it is almost unbearably so. The hair on the altar bursts into flames. Gertrude tries to resist the urge to scream, but the blazing heat pulls it out of her, a wail of agony. If there were anyone within a mile of this clearing, they would hear it, no question - but she chose her place well, and now the only ones to hear her cries are the pine martens. 

Amidst the unbearable scorching feeling on her flesh, Gertrude feels something else. It is as though a string is wrapping around her, beginning slowly but becoming quicker. Curling around her feet first, then her legs and torso, the filament is far from comfortable. However, Gertrude notices that wherever it weaves around her, it eases the pain of the heat. Coiling around her fingers now, then her arms and chest, the strands are close to covering her. 

Gertrude snaps out of the temporary relief over eased heat, and takes stock of what is happening. It cannot be good. She flails her limbs, and while she can move just fine, the string holds fast to her body. It wraps around her neck now, and she scratches at it to get it to halt, but it is as though her hands do not even exist to it. It continues up her chin and face, and before she can figure out a logical course of action, the thing approaches her eyes.  
“No,” she gasps. “No!”

It is of no avail. To her horror, Gertrude feels the thin strings weaving around her very eyeballs. They do not obstruct her vision, but she knows enough about the ways of the powers to understand that this definitely means something for her work under the Beholding. 

_ No, no, no! _ This isn’t what the book had said would happen. What was she doing, following the advice of some dusty old tome she’d unearthed from a stack in the institute library? Now she’s bound in the web of a power she doesn’t yet understand, and she doesn’t even know if it had any effect on the fire messiah she’d set out to debilitate in the first place. 

_ Calm down, Gertrude, and look around you. There is always something to be done.  _ She glances first down at her body and sees that the string must be invisible. She still feels it binding her, but though the feeling remains the same, she finds herself noticing it less and less. It seems perfectly happy to fade into the background of her consciousness. 

Looking around the clearing, Gertrude lets out an incredulous laugh. It’s completely blackened. Any plant, fungus, or insect that inhabited it has long since perished. She isn’t sure what it means, but the marks of the Desolation are clear, which gives Gertrude a slim bit of hope that at least  _ something  _ about the spell had the desired effect. 


	3. Chapter 3

Agnes pays no more mind to the bar patrons than they pay her. What a week. She has learned to ignore the constricting feel of the fibers against her skin, but the cooling of her fire has been an acute loss. Clutching her drink, she resigns herself to the fact that it will take minutes and minutes to reach a boil, rather than the usual seconds. 

“Excuse me,” comes a voice to her right. 

Startled, Agnes looks up to see the butch with the intense eyes from before. “Hello.”

The butch searches her face. She looks familiar, and not just because Agnes saw her at this same bar a few weeks ago. It’s something else, something she can’t quite put a finger on. “Pardon me, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

_ Haven’t we?  _ “No, I suppose not. I’m Agnes.”

“A pleasure,” says the butch, sticking out her hand. “Gertrude.”

Agnes shakes Gertrude’s hand before thinking about what she’s doing. Instantly she recoils in mortification, cursing her impulsivity for putting herself in a position to get kicked out of yet another lesbian bar. But Gertrude doesn’t react, and a quick glance at her hand reveals that it is wholly unburnt. How? Even with reduced powers, a handshake from Agnes is bound to hurt at least a little.

“Sorry, I-”

“Don’t worry about it.” Gertrude’s eyes have not left Agnes’s face, but her gaze seems less penetrating now than it did a few weeks ago. “Are you alright?”

No one has asked that question of Agnes in a long time, years perhaps. She doesn’t know who this Gertrude is, but she thinks she likes her. She smiles. “I am now.”

Gertrude returns the smile and extends her hand yet again, this time palm up. “What do you say we get out of here?”

Agnes pauses, and then takes Gertrude’s hand. “All right.”

~*~

As soon as the door closes behind them, Gertrude sets to the task of removing her leather jacket and unlacing her boots. Agnes stares, wondering at her luck. A handsome butch, in her own apartment, with the intent to - well. She can’t be sure about that quite yet. 

When Gertrude looks up, however, with eyes brazen, Agnes is suddenly sure. She moves slowly towards Gertrude, and takes her face in hand. “Yes?”

Gertrude’s only response is to lean in and kiss her. Her lips are soft yet decisive, and Agnes feels a line of heat run through her that is wholly unrelated to her fire powers. She kisses back, running her hands over the buzzed hair, and feels Gertrude’s arms encircle her waist. Agnes isn’t sure exactly how this all is supposed to be done, given that she’s never felt the touch of a non-Desolation person without nearly killing them in the process. (How isn’t she killing Gertrude now?) But despite all that, she’s excited to find out.

~*~

Agnes wakes up smiling. She hums and rolls over, expecting to see - and perhaps even kiss - the face of the woman who provided her with such a thoroughly good time last night. 

The space next to her is empty. What’s more, the sheets are neat as if untouched, and the intoxicating scent of the butch’s cologne is nowhere to be found. Agnes would assume that Gertrude simply left before she awoke, unhappy an assumption though that may be, but the evidence points rather to her not having been there at all. 

But that can’t be! Agnes remembers every detail so clearly. There is no way her dreaming mind could have fabricated the soft press of Gertrude’s lips, the feel of her hands on and inside of Agnes, the need in her eyes as she brought Agnes to a culmination of the fire that she had stoked deep within her. She would never in a million years have imagined the way Gertrude looked at her afterwards, the quizzical yet deep tenderness written in every line of that handsome face. It can’t have been a dream.

Agnes tries to summon more detailed memories as proof, but she finds gaps. How did she and Gertrude get from the bar to her apartment? Come to think of it, she doesn’t even remember her journey to the bar in the first place. It is at that moment that she recalls: today is a Monday, and she only ever goes out on Saturday nights. 

It must have been a dream. So why did it feel so real?


	4. Chapter 4

Gertrude watches the flames as they climb higher into the sky. The way they surge to consume everything in their path with a vengeful hunger… well, she might even call it beautiful. When the wood begins to crumble from all the fiery destruction, Gertrude’s chest tightens in satisfaction. She knows that none of the spiders or their myriad webs within the walls of the shed could possibly survive.

While Gertrude doesn’t know exactly what is going on with the spiders, she suspects they had something to do with the unexpected way her ritual turned out. Why they foiled her, why it mattered to them that she be just as affected as the fire woman, what they wanted out of the whole situation anyway - these are questions she has turned over and over again in her mind, with no satisfactory answer in sight. 

What  _ is _ in sight, however, is a spider-filled shed that she torched thanks to a lead from an arachnophobic statement giver. Regarding her work, she suddenly isn’t quite sure why she was so quick to set it aflame. She is a Watcher; she does not intervene to save naive idiots from falling prey to the powers. Noble as her eventual goals may be, she simply does not have time to go meddling. So why this? 

Something inside the shed explodes with a loud crackle, and a thrill of joy runs down Gertrude’s spine.  _ This wasn’t for the statement giver,  _ she realizes at once.  _ This was for me. _ But she never used to take pleasure from destruction, so why -  _ oh.  _

With a blaze of hot rage, Gertrude feels the pieces fall to place within her mind.  _ I may have done this for myself, but I did it  _ because  _ of  _ her. 

~*~

The man screams as his flesh melts. He could not escape the fire - he never can - and now he has met a most painful end. Gertrude might care, but she’s seen it too many times. While she prefers not to take live statements most of the time, she does appreciate the variety they add to her usual rotation of dream horrors. It might be about time for her to take a new one. She taps her foot, waiting for the next round of terror that she must witness. Who will it be this time? Francesca running from the big bad wolf? Geoffrey succumbing to the clutches of evil quicksand? She hasn’t got all night.

The next scene, however, is not someone else’s dream. It is simply her own apartment at about 5pm, golden light streaming through the window onto the coffee table. That’s strange; this must not be an entity-related dream at all. Gertrude shrugs and walks into the kitchen to get a glass of water, but in the doorway she stops in her tracks. 

Agnes.

Gertrude folds her arms in front of her. “Come to invade my dreams yet again? Haven’t you done enough?” 

The woman knits her eyebrows together in apparent confusion, and her cheeks betray a hint of a blush. Gertrude hates that she notices how beautiful the blush looks when juxtaposed with Agnes’ delicate white dress. “I knew last time was a dream,” begins Agnes at last, “but I didn’t realize… that you…”

“That it was actually me?”

Agnes’ blush deepens. _ Keep it together, Gertrude.  _ “Yes.” 

Gertrude forces herself to remember today’s events instead of the intimacy she’d experienced with Agnes in their last shared dream. Her jaw clenches in anger. “Yes, it was me, and you know what else was me? Someone who burned down an entire shed today on an impulse.”

Agnes says nothing, simply watching Gertrude. 

“Well?” Getrude says, impatient. “What have you to say to that?”

“I cannot see how it has any relevance to me.” 

Gertrude has had enough of this, and so lets the compulsion seep into her voice when she speaks again. “ _ What did you do to me?”  _

Agnes’ eyes do not glaze over as often happens to someone compelled. Does it not work in dreams? “I did nothing to you. What I want to know is, what did  _ you _ do to  _ me?” _

Unprepared for this question, Gertrude stammers a little. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“My fire has dimmed.” Agnes takes a deep breath. “And I’ve been having these moments of intense curiosity, something I’ve never felt before. I keep finding myself staring at strangers, wanting to know their secrets.”

“And what makes you think that has something to do with me?” 

“Don’t play stupid with me, Gertrude,” snaps Agnes. “You know perfectly well why. It took me awhile to figure out what your deal was, but you’re with the Eye, aren’t you?”

Gertrude does not have to answer that. She simply nods her head.

“What did you do to me?” Agnes repeats. 

Finally leaving the doorway, Gertrude opens the cupboard to fetch a glass. She goes to fill it, but the tap water is hot to the touch.  _ Never mind, then.  _

She turns to face Agnes, who is still watching her. “It wasn’t me that did it to you. That is, I tried to do something, but it did not go how I anticipated.”

Agnes tilts her head to the side a bit, letting her auburn locks cascade over her shoulder. It reminds Gertrude of when-  _ no, save that thought for later.  _ “What do you mean?”

“What do you know of the Spider?”

Instant recognition floods Agnes’ face. “I see. So it got both of us, then.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“That must be why we’re in one another’s dreams too.”

“Yes.”

Agnes meets Gertrude’s gaze, and her eyes are soft now. “Did you know you were destroying your own future in order to destroy mine?”

Destroying her own future. Gertrude hasn’t quite considered it like that, but given that she is feeling just as many effects of her ritual as Agnes seems to be, it must be correct. The realization fills her with a burning rage. 

Gertrude moves towards Agnes quickly, the anger inside her wanting to brim over into violence and destruction. She wants to  _ do  _ something, to get back at the forces who have ruined her so. Agnes watches her as she approaches, expression unreadable. It isn’t Agnes, though, is it? Agnes had no say in any of this, and it wouldn’t be fair for Gertrude to take out her rage on her; they’re in this together. She stops. 

Agnes cracks a half-smile. “Couldn’t do it, could you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Even now, you’re trying to deceive me.” Agnes rolls her eyes. “Do you think I’m any stranger to destructive impulses? To the feeling that you could burn all of this down and it still wouldn’t be enough to quench the rage?”

Agnes’s face is close now, and intense. She is saying things that Gertrude feels deeply, even if those feelings are relatively new to her. Gertrude wants to think more on them, perhaps when she wakes up. For now, however…

Gertrude leans in slowly and kisses Agnes. 


	5. Chapter 5

**2006**

Agnes stirs her drink with her finger. It’s cold, and growing colder. The bar is empty of patrons, but she doesn’t need that to tell her that she is dreaming; she already knows. 

She’s long since learned how to tell dreams from the waking world (some might call it “reality,” but Agnes would argue that she has experienced realer things in dreams than she ever has there). Even if she did not have that skill, though, she would know that she isn’t really at the lesbian bar downtown. 

No, in reality, Agnes is hanging by the neck from the ceiling of her apartment, members of the Lightless Flame gathered around in what they pretend is mourning. Now is just a pocket of time - she doesn’t know how long - in which her brain can enjoy its last flickers of activity. Figures that it would take her here.

“Agnes.”

Starting a little, she turns to see Gertrude facing her. It has been over a year since they last shared a dream, and the butch, while still handsome as ever, looks older. She’s got a sweater on instead of the usual leather jacket, and her glasses prescription seems higher.

“Gertrude, I’m-”

Gertrude nods. “I know.” Her eyes are more piercing than ever. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Agnes takes another sip of her drink. Both of them know that this is, in a way, Gertrude’s fault. If she had not bound the two of them in a ritual, Agnes would not have failed as a messiah, and her death would not be necessary to ensure a future for her community. But Agnes, for all the anger blazing at her core, does not blame Gertrude. 

The two sit wordlessly at the bar for a time, watching each other. Finally, Agnes breaks the silence. “Can you ask me a question? With your Eye powers, that is.”

Gertrudes watches her for a moment. “Last time I tried, it didn’t work.”

“You’re more powerful now. Just try, please - I don’t have much time left.”

“Alright.  _ Agnes Montague, what is on your mind?”  _

“I kissed a man today,” Agnes says before she even has a chance to think about it. Gertrude seems surprised, but says nothing. “I hurt him. He didn’t deserve it, and while it felt good to cause him that pain, I didn’t really want to. But I felt like I had to.”

“All my life, I figured it was fine that I was a lesbian. I knew the Lightless Flame couldn’t hate me for it - after all, I was too important. But after years of not being able to be what they wanted me to be, not being able to bring forth our god through flame and destruction, I was desperate for approval. I hoped that I could at least be  _ something  _ of worth to them, and so I reciprocated the interest of a local man who liked me. I didn’t like him, not like that. I knew I couldn’t. But I tried to anyway, just so that I could feel a little bit less like a failure.”

Knitting her brows together, Gertrude asks, “And did that work?”

“No,” sighs Agnes. “It just made Jude hate me, and left the poor man disfigured, probably for the rest of his life. It was in that moment, right after I kissed him, that I knew: I was never going to be what the Lightless Flame wanted me to be. I knew it had to end, all of it.”

“You don’t only have to live for them, you know.”

“No, Gertrude, you don’t understand. The only reason I  _ exist  _ is for them, is to be the catalyst for their scorched earth. I can’t just give that up and live my life as usual. I could never lead a normal life; I mean, I can’t even really get close to anyone who’s not them, unless…”

“Unless you’re meeting me in a dream.” Gertrude’s eyes, though still penetrating to the depths of her soul, are gentle. She reaches a hand towards Agnes.

Agnes feels the warmth of Gertrude’s hand on her ever colder skin, and begins to cry. Amidst her tears, she marvels bitterly at the irony of the woman who robbed her of her heat being the last to provide her with it. 

As if she heard Agnes’s thoughts - given the capacities of the Beholding, it wouldn’t be out of the question - Gertrude stands up, removing her hand from atop Agnes’. Brimming with yet more tears at this loss of warmth, Agnes stops when she sees that Gertrude is holding out a lighter.

“I thought you might want to set something on fire one last time,” she says simply, giving a pointed glance at the building around them. Agnes nods, and takes the lighter from her.

~*~

Gertrude stands alone outside the flaming wreckage of the lesbian bar. Agnes was beautiful with her face lit by the blaze, enthralled as if it were her first time ever seeing fire. In all their time together, Gertrude muses, she had never actually seen Agnes in her element like that. Now the woman is gone, form dissipated into the sky like so much smoke, and all that is left of her soul is the lighter that Gertrude clutches tightly inside her pocket. 

She has never been a sentimental person, but perhaps someday she will ignite the lighter and tell Agnes that she was the only woman Gertrude ever really loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to my friend Sam for coming up with the "Gertrude put Agnes' soul in the Web lighter" theory.

**Author's Note:**

> Historical note: The Gateways was a prominent lesbian bar in 1970s London.


End file.
